Technology, not Morality

The Dallas Morning News today includes an editorial regarding the "unintended consequences" of expanding ethanol subsidies and use. The diversion of the nation's food supply to fuel has resulted in inconvenient and substantial increases of food prices in the United States and potentially fatal increases in undeveloped countries.

We will allow "unintended consequences;" but how could they have been unanticipated?

Al Gore and other proponents of addressing climate change have spoken of it as a "moral" issue of "crisis" proportions. Of course, when someone calls their crusade a moral cause -- whether it be prohibition of alcohol or carbon -- they are making the suggestion that those not on board with the cause are immoral and, thus, not worthy of being listened to. They also tend to put on blinders as they plunge full speed ahead with any ideas deemed to further the cause.

However, concerns regarding possible climate change caused by humans do not really raise a moral question. In fact, all of the solutions to the problem they describe are not meaningful, as they might be compared to someone spitting in the ocean to stop a drought. The questions of reducing carbon outtake is really a technological matter to be addressed, not a moral one.